A fair number of people hate cottage cheese, my DH being among them.
I grew up on it in SoCal where a particular dairy (Altadena) made great cottage cheese. There were a few other quite good brands way back then as well.

Alas, the passing of the years has seen severe quality degradation in this basically simple product. Low quality milk, increasing numbers of various additives, etc., etc. Most cottage cheeses from a regular grocery store are blandly salty with no other flavor. No such thing as a quart of it anymore either. And, the smaller containers are not really full and there's a lot of watery liquid surrounding the ill-formed curds. The stuff is okay, IF very well-drained, in recipes but don't try to just eat it!

The only brands that taste good to me anymore are Trader's Point and Nancy's Cultured. These are available only - at least where I live - in natural foods stores, of which only one store sells the Trader's Point. A high price and the store is frequently out of stock.

Enter the new marketing strategy of cottage cheese makers. Yes, you read that right. There are several new players in the field. Articles I've read say they want to cut into the gigantic market for Greek yogurt.

So, what's the point of all this?

New kid in my town is "good culture" cottage cheese. Yes, they spell the name with small "g" and small "c". As of now I can find it only at Publix and only the individual containers of 5.3 ounces. This grocery store has carried blueberry, strawberry, and plain full-fat. The label says the individual size of plain contains 150 calories, 5 grams of carbs, and a whopping 18 grams of protein.

Flavor: OH MY!!!! :jumpy:

It is so delicious I can eat it totally plain. It has a very "cultured" flavor, which you either like or don't.

Can't tell you the price because DH is the one who bought it yesterday. I will assume it's more expensive than other brands.

I intend to buy as much as I can eat within the expiration time. I want my store to continue carrying it AND to stock the larger containers which the company's website tells me are made.

Carolyn, in my exasperation, I've made cottage cheese myself. No, it's not particularly hard.
BUT, most of today's milk is ultra high heat pasteurized. Not good. No flavor. Denatured proteins. Also why heavy whipping cream isn't as yummy as it was years ago.

You can buy a good powdered culture online. Finding quality, tasty milk is another whole story...

I can get raw milk here (not allowed in most states) but I have to admit that my three or four attempts using it for cc were not unqualified successes. Meaning, the "good" brands I've mentioned really are better than my so-so results.

I would wager your husband's mother used fresh, raw milk. It will naturally clabber on its own.

Little low on the fat if you're eat LF/HC, but you can always add a splash of olive oil.

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"The reason we are scared of cholesterol and fat has to do with the fact that there are drugs to lower cholesterol [$29 BILLION/year industry] and 50 percent of what we grow in America is now either corn or soy, which can easily be manufactured into low-fat products." Dr. Cate Shanahan (from "Cholesterol Clarity" by J. Moore & E. Westman)

When I was young, very very many years ago, I loved cottage cheese. Now I no longer buy it because I cannot find one that tastes the same as it did back then. After reading this thread, I'm thinking it was probably because what they had back then was probably more like the cultured you are talking about here. Can't see myself making my own, but I will never say never.

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Carol

"The first step to solving a problem is to admit that one exists."
Dr Jason Fung

I used Braums milk...just says Pasteurized...I used whole milk and animal rennet from Amazon.

Heated one quart of milk to 85 degrees. (Not too warm). Put 4 drops of rennet in the milk, off heat, and stir gently for 2 minutes.

Then cover the pan with clean cloth towel and put the pan lid on and let set for 4 hours on the counter.

Then score the slightly set up Cheese with a knife, vertically and horizontally.
Then add 1/2 tsp of salt.

Put back on the stove..medium heat and stir with slotted spoon until curds form. It took a couple of minutes. It seemed like small curds formed, then bigger ones. They said if you stirred too long, the curds would be tough.

Then pour mixture into a cloth lined colander. I used an old fashioned cotton dish towel. Drain whey. Mine took about 2 minutes, but if the curds had been smaller, they say to put this in the fridge for an hour.

Put curds into a storage bowl, add heavy cream and more salt if you want and store in fridge. Whey can be used as milk in shakes or other things, I guess.

Lots of whey! I got maybe 1 1/2 cups of the cheese, but enough for 3 servings.

I used a culture for cheese making from an online source specializing in such. Did not have to add rennet but it did sit on the counter over night. Did the same scoring, cooking, draining process as you did. I got lots of whey, too. That's where all the carbs are so I did throw it out. I've read that old-time farmers' wives fed it to the animals.

Friendship 2% small curd. not because it was low fat. but, because it was delicious. trouble was, I ate the whole container in 1 sitting. it is/was that good. ergo, CC is out of my plan for the foresee-able future. Love & Profits: FLATFERENGHI

This thread has peaked my interest in cottage cheese again. Unfortunately, none of the really good brands mentioned are available in my area, so I decided to just try different local brands until I find one I like. I started out with Great Value from Walmart. It was thick the way I like it, but it had an odd taste to me. Now I have Dean's Dairy, from Dallas Tx. It has a good taste, but was a little runny for my liking. I put it in my cheese strainer that I used when I used to make yogurt and it drained the excess liquid and it's pretty good now. I want to try Daisy, too, because of it not having any added ingredients, but I'm thinking without the gum added as a thickener, it will be too running for me, but I have my cheese strainer if necessary.

Thumbs Up! to those of you making your own!

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Carol

"The first step to solving a problem is to admit that one exists."
Dr Jason Fung

Carol, with the runny brands, there's a little trick I picked up somewhere along the line.
After opening the container, place several coffee filters (the scalloped cup kind) on top of the cottage cheese. Turn the container upside down, place it on a small plate, and refrigerate.

A lot of water will be absorbed by the filters. You can keep replacing the filters with fresh ones each time you remove some of the cheese for eating. More and more liquid is absorbed.

Ginny, here is the yogurt strainer I have. It's like a tupperware container with a lid, with a mesh insert. You just put the cottage cheese or yogurt in the mesh inserts and the next day or even a few hours later all the extra liquid is down in the bottom of the container and you just dump it out. Then I scrape the cottage cheese back into the original container.

Today, I went to another store that had Daisy Cottage Cheese which I wanted to try, and also 2 others that I haven't tried so I bought all three. LOL I wanted to do a taste test. Daisy was the only one that didn't have the extra ingredients, like the gum for thickener. It was my favorite. I was surprised that it wasn't runny at all, but nice and thick the way I like it and had a good taste. The other two were Crawleys and Cabot. I love Cabot Yogurt, but didn't like their cottage cheese at all. Crawleys was acceptable, but Daisy won over the other two. That will be my choice until I can find another, like Nancy's.

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Carol

"The first step to solving a problem is to admit that one exists."
Dr Jason Fung